


and this, i swear to all.

by subparauthorings



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Angst, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Inspired by Music, Music, long epic weird ass au just generally
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 00:02:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14366589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subparauthorings/pseuds/subparauthorings
Summary: "If I said the band name ‘Bartlet for America’ to you, and innocently asked if you had heard any of their music, you would probably frown and think because the name sounds familiar, like maybe your brother or college roommate listens to them or something, but you couldn’t recall any of their songs by memory. Well, I am among my friends a certified BFA cognoscente, and today I’m here to give all of the uncultured readers of our good magazine an education in the music of the greatest alternative rock band to grace our charts in the last few years." - Danny Concannon, rock journalist.The story of the greatest alternative rock band to grace your charts. Fictionally, of course.





	1. here we come to a turning of the seasons

**june 2016**

**song of the chapter: ‘june hymn’, the decemberists**

 

The Hawk and Dove was a small, quiet, hole-in-the-wall pub on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, frequented by both hipster college students dressed ironically in plaid and suspenders and their wearisome professors, also in plaid and suspenders, but as distinctly less of a trend-bucking fashion choice. It had an oddly wide selection of midwestern lager and three different kinds of rosé, and served the best loaded fries in the neighbourhood in the esteemed opinion of both the aforementioned college students and local bass player Josh Lyman, who tended to share their dietary habits. 

 

This was a point of contention between him and his bandmate CJ, who, upon smelling the bacon and cheese, would glare at his plate of saturated fats with contempt and order him to eat a vegetable. Josh, because he was a cheeky little shit, would simply smirk at her and continue eating. 

 

The exchange was, all in all, reliably entertaining. The seven of them - CJ, Josh, Toby, Sam, Mandy, Donna and Leo - would squish into a booth in the back of the dimly lit pub and listen to the halfway decent booked musicians and drink their Midwestern lager and watch CJ and Josh squabble about food. They would talk and laugh and eat and forget about their troubles for a short while, because that was the power of the Hawk and Dove - its red leather barstools and dark lighting and gritty atmosphere worked like an anaesthetic on your mind. But tonight, Josh was sitting lamely at a barstool on his lonesome, playing with his fries and swirling his scotch around in its glass, lamenting the loss of someone dear. 

 

The musicians that night were playing something appropriately maudlin -  a brother and sister duo who, Josh noticed absently, seemed like very promising young artists. He listened to the gentle tune of the young girl’s voice and sipped his whiskey and felt sorry for himself, which wasn’t very Josh-like. He didn’t usually lament - he didn’t get sad, he got angry. But he had already been angry, and it felt like all the energy it took to summon his fury had been leeched in the final exchange between himself and his ex-girlfriend. 

 

_“It was a dumb mistake, Josh! It was a dumb, stupid mistake and I regret it, I do!” Mandy screamed, almost looking deranged. Her hands ran through her short dark hair, seemingly of their own accord. “Why isn’t that enough?”_

 

_“Because it’s not, Mandy!” He yelled in reply. “You betrayed my ex-boss, a man I admire. You betrayed my -_ **_our -_ ** _family! And it wasn’t just your job, Mandy, that’s bullshit. You told him stories about Jed because you were working for him. I get that. This industry is brutal, and you take what you get. But you told him stories about Leo, and CJ, and Toby, and Donna, to spite_ **_me_ ** _. You told him all that because you were sleeping with him!”_

 

_Mandy exhaled slowly and fell onto the bed behind her. “Yes,” she said finally, and when she quirked her head up at him defiantly, her eyes were ringed red. “Yes, I did.”_

 

_Josh didn’t look at her - his gaze was fixated on the city skyline visible from Mandy’s window in the townhouse, which admittedly wasn’t great. It was less a city skyline and more lights twinkling over the top of a bodega roof._

 

_“Get out, Mandy.” He said finally. “And don’t bother coming back.”_

 

_Josh expected Mandy, who usually did not bear hardship gracefully, to argue. But she didn’t. In Josh’s periphery he saw her nod and glance down at her hands. His vision was still tinted red, but the sting of his anger diminished a little at this, and he sighed. “Mandy, I didn’t want it to… to end like this.”_

 

_“Neither did I.”_

 

_“But I just can’t do this anymore. Run after you, fixing your mistakes as you go. You can’t betray the others because you’re mad with me. That’s just… it’s not on.” He paused, watching her. Mandy didn’t cry, and she wasn’t crying now. She was sitting there stiffly and taking what Josh said with a never-before-seen grace. “We always had an expiry date.” He murmured._

 

_Mandy nodded. “We did.”_

 

_“I’m sorry it has to be this way.”_

 

_“But it does, doesn’t it?” She posed it as a question, but it was a statement laced with finality._

 

_“It does.” Josh agreed._

 

_“I’m sorry, Josh,” Mandy said, and in a less stubborn woman, it would have been whispered, perhaps through a curtain of tears. But taking Josh’s fury with grace was the biggest admission of wrongdoing Mandy would ever make, and she said it proudly, just like Josh would expect. His lips almost quirked into a smile, but he was still too furious for that to happen anytime soon._

 

_“I’m sorry, too,” he said, taking a breath and stepping out of Mandy’s room, closing the door gently behind him._

 

“Josh?”

 

A voice to his left roused Josh from his reverie. He turned sharply to see Donna - his manager and occasional session violinist -sitting beside him, hair pinned back with a pencil, no makeup, and coat thrown on over an army green t-shirt he knew she slept in. She was lightly stirring a vodka cranberry and appraising him with an arched eyebrow. Somehow, even though her apparel betrayed to him that she had come unprepared, she would look as put-together as anyone to an onlooker. 

 

“Donna, what are you doing here?” He asked, resting his head on his palm and looked up at her, almost a little morosely. 

 

“Toby told me that you and Mandy had a screaming match.”

 

“Mandy and I have lots of screaming matches.” He turned his gaze to his scotch, which suddenly seemed very appealing under Donna’s intense stare. 

 

“He also said that she left with boxes half an hour later and that her room is empty.” Donna’s eyes narrowed. “What happened, Josh? As your manager, I am here in two capacities - one, because I need to know how this particular screaming match is going to affect business. And two, because I’m your friend, you idiot, and I care about you.” Donna poked his shoulder. “What happened?”

 

Josh made a split-second call to down his scotch. Then, without looking up at Donna, he said “Mandy and I broke up.”

 

It was silent for a while, save for the soft, lulling voice of the girl singing along to her brother’s drumbeat onstage. Josh could feel Donna’s presence, and he found it oddly comforting, but he had always been unnerved by silence and spoke almost unthinkingly. “You’re not surprised.”

 

Things were very rarely serious between Josh and Donna; they had known each other for nearly three years now, and Josh had forgotten what it was like to be without her. She had come to play session violin for Josh’s old boss - knowing nothing about the music industry and having only her talent to recommend her - and never left; somehow ended up as the joint manager of Josh’s band, ‘Bartlet for America’. She was one of his best friends, he thought (though he would never say it aloud, because she would ridicule him for eternity), but Josh couldn’t remember a time when Donna had fixed him with a gaze so intense, yet so vulnerable. Where she had seemed so serious. He felt something unpleasant in his chest; a need to backtrack. But before he could say a word, Donna spoke. 

 

“Josh, you’re a much better man than you believe.”

 

Josh didn’t quite know what to make of that.

 

“No, Josh, I’m not surprised.” Donna continued. “But not because I didn’t have faith in your relationship. Because I know you - I get you. I’m not surprised that you couldn’t stay with a woman who spread lies about your friends, no matter her motivation. You underestimate my faith in _you_ , Josh.” 

 

She smiled, and patted his shoulder. “Things are going to be okay. For a while, it’ll feel like crap. You might worry you made the wrong call. But you didn’t - you’re fine. We’ll find another drummer. One without a slight drug issue and problematic resume. Mandy built her career on spite for you, Josh. You can do better - we can do better.” 

 

Josh still had no idea what to make of Donna’s kindness. Of her words. He didn’t believe he was all the things she said, that any of it was true. And Josh was if nothing if not a pragmatist - kind words and reaffirmations weren’t his coping style - his coping style was alcohol and throwing things at basement walls. But somehow, listening to Donna’s voice say comforting things and downing two scotches had actually helped a little, and he grinned up at her from where his head still rested on his hand. 

 

“Donnatella, I never knew you cared,” he teased. 

 

Donna hid a smile, and shook her head a little. “You’re an idiot, Josh.” She rolled her eyes, sipping her vodka cranberry and turning her attention to the stage, where the brother and sister were still playing - somewhere in Josh and Donna’s conversation the music had switched to something more upbeat, and Donna’s eyes moved over the pair with interest. Her fingers followed the beat against the edge of the bar, and it was only when Josh followed her gaze that he began to take any actual notice of the musicians themselves. 

 

Josh recalled them being announced and remembered that they were siblings - they were both African American, and dressed sharply; the girl in a red cocktail dress and the young man in a suit with a tie to match. He was seated behind a drum kit and singing backup to the girl’s lead. She was playing an original Fender, and had her nails painted to match her dress; they gleamed in the light. They looked at home under a spotlight. Their music was good, and when the song came to a close, a roar of applause went around the bar. 

 

“Thanks so much, guys,” the girl said. “Because you’re always so great, I just thought I’d let you all know - I got accepted to Berkeley to start in the fall, so this’ll be my last set here for a while! Keep an eye on my big bro, though, okay? I worry about him.” A murmur of laughter went through the crowd and the young man flushed. “I’m Deanna, this is my brother Charlie who’s outta work for a while - sorry, Charl - and you guys have been awesome, as per usual! Thanks a million!” As the pair made their way offstage, there was another polite smattering of applause. Deanna waved again and smiled, while Charlie ducked his head. 

 

When Josh turned away, Donna was still staring at the stage. He tilted his head at her lightly. “What are you thinking, Donnatella?”

 

Donna jumped a little, like Josh had startled her from deep thought. She studied his face for a moment, and then spoke decisively, authoritatively. “We need a drummer.” 

 

Josh raised an eyebrow in reply. “Yeah,” he said. 

 

“That kid was pretty good. And he needs a job. I think you know what I’m thinking.” 

 

“I hope you’re thinking about calling Leo and the others. I hope you’re thinking that they’d be pretty mad to miss making any executive decisions.” Josh said slowly. 

 

“That’s exactly what I was thinking!” Donna smiled brightly. “Except I was thinking you can make the phone calls and I can catch the kid at the door and buy him a beer.” She leapt out of her seat, purse in hand, and made a beeline for the backstage exit. Josh sighed. When he had entered the Hawk and Dove, feeling morose and self-pitying, this certainly wasn’t how he was expecting the night to go. 

 

He pulled out his Blackberry - in the year of our Lord two thousand and eighteen, yes, Joshua Lyman still had a Blackberry - and dialled CJ’s number. If anyone could round up their bandmates and get them to come down and listen to Donna’s unwavering optimism and Josh’s bullshit whilst getting totally and utterly sloshed, it was CJ. 

 

“Joshua, my good man,” she greeted. “How art thou? Crappy? Toby told me there was screaming.” 

 

How did Toby know so much anyway, Josh wondered, but he didn’t say this aloud - instead, he said “Presumably you know we no longer have a drummer.”

 

CJ hummed her agreement. 

 

“Well, this may no longer be an issue. Donna’s found a potential candidate.”

 

“Already? That girl is an absolute marvel.” 

 

“Well, Marvel-Girl wants you all to come down to the Hawk and Dove to meet this kid.” Josh ran a hand through his hair, pushing down the urge to pace because that was _not_ practical in the tiny little pub. 

 

“Kid? How old is he?”

 

“No idea, but his little sister is starting college in the fall, and they play together, so as of two months from now, he’s out of a gig. Donna wants us to swoop in and book him before someone else does.” 

 

“Mmkay, mmkay,” CJ contemplated for a moment. “I’ll call the others, mi compadre, but there better be cheap disgusting lager when we get there. I’m counting on you.” 

 

“Duly noted,” Josh grinned. “See you soon.”

 

~

 

When Charlie Young’s evening began, he did not expect himself to be commandeered by a young blonde woman and peered at by a group of middle-aged people he did not know. He expected himself to play his set and go home and study, and expected that Deanna would play the crowd at his expense and he would blush in that way she never lets him forget. He had a routine for Thursday nights - they went a certain way. But tonight, all of that seemed to be going out the window. 

 

The blonde woman - Donna, she said her name was - had cornered him backstage, explaining that she was the manager of a band that had very recently lost a much needed drummer. She told him she was very impressed with him, and that she would like to buy him a beer with the rest of the band, if that was okay. Charlie did not particularly know how to respond to this, so he placidly agreed. 

 

Donna had dragged him over to the bar and introduced him to a slightly dishevelled-looking man named Josh, who was the band’s bassist and backup vocalist. He was playing discontentedly with a plate of loaded fries, and when he was distracted Donna whispered to him that their lost drummer was his newly-ex girlfriend. She then proceeded to whack the back of Josh’s head and tell him to stop being so rude. Charlie felt himself beginning to like Donna. 

 

In a spare moment when the two of them were distracted, Charlie googled the band - ‘Bartlet for America’, Donna had said - on his phone. He learned they were a band of five based locally who had put out one album and a few singles, plus an EP. They had a respectable number of Spotify listeners and Charlie felt a vague sense of flattery that their manager had approached him and found him talented. 

 

Just after Charlie’s beer arrived, a party of four wove their way through the pub to greet Josh and Donna. The woman, he recognised as the band’s guitarist and lead singer, though for the life of him he could not remember her name. 

 

“CJ Cregg,” she introduced herself, shedding her coat onto the back of a barstool. “You must be the wondrous drummer I have heard very little about!”

 

“Charlie Young,” Charlie nodded, holding out his hand, which CJ took. The others began settling around them, and the man next to Charlie introduced himself as Leo McGarry, the band’s other manager. Across the corner of the bar sat the other two guys, who Charlie learned were Toby Ziegler, saxophonist and songwriter, and Sam Seaborn, guitarist and songwriter. The conversation between them all came easy, and Charlie, initially wary, felt himself begin to relax. There was light teasing and plenty of laughter, and when CJ had had enough drinks she stopped asking him questions about where he learned to drum (“My aunt bought me a drum kit for my eighteenth birthday. I had no use for it, but my sister Deanna loves music, so she taught me so we could play together.”) and what he was studying at Columbia (“Pre-Law”) and started enthusiastically telling him the story of how ‘Bartlet for America’ got their name.

 

“We all started out under industry legend, Jed Bartlet,” she began, waving a finger in his direction. “If you don’t know who he is, you are a sinner. He is one of the greatest rock legends of the twentieth century, and Leo here was his manager. Eventually, we all started playing session for him, and we were his favourites. The regulars, you know? I played guitar with Sammy here, Josh played bass, Toby did sax and Donna did violin. And wrote a lot of press releases and things because she’s a marvel. Donna you’re a marvel!” 

 

Donna turned from her conversation with Leo at this and waved her thanks. 

 

“So,” CJ went on, “We would tour with him sometimes, and he would tell us about how politics was going downhill and he had some thoughts he wanted to share with Congress about governance. We used to joke about all the idiot celebrities who ran for office, just because they could, you know, and ‘Bartlet for America’ became what the youths would call a ‘meme’. He would make a better President than Bush did, who was in at the time, so it was a wholesome meme, you know?”

 

Charlie nodded smilingly and encouraged CJ to continue. 

 

“Anyways, Jed retired back in 2014, so we were all out of a job. And me and Toby here had the rather excellent idea to start a band of our own in his honour, except don’t tell him I told you, because he rather likes his reputation as a grumpy old Scrooge. But don’t let him fool you,” CJ leaned in and whispered in Charlie’s ear. “He’s really a sweetheart.” 

 

“I’ll commit it to memory,” he laughed, and CJ nodded happily, like this was the right answer to a question she hadn’t asked. 

 

“We had a drummer, too,” CJ added after a pause, almost as an afterthought. “Her name was Mandy. But she kinda had… issues. Drugs. Slightly. And insecurity, you know? And she was dating Josh, but she just broke his heart over and over again. Because… issues. One time, back when we were working for Bartlet, she left Josh for a while, and it turned out she was working for this other musician and she wrote this entire dossier on all of us. Our weaknesses, everything,” CJ paused to take a swig of her screwdriver. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. It’s kinda a fresh wound for Josh, you know? Anyway. Josh found out, and it was the final straw. He’s a good dude too. He didn’t want us getting hurt. He shouldn’t worry so much. But he dumped Mandy, and kicked her out of our townhouse, and the band. So we are in need of a drummer.” 

 

CJ paused sadly, and tipped the remaining contents of her drink into her mouth. She’d had a few by this point, and turned around to start a conversation with Toby, who was sucking absently on a cigar, which Charlie thought was probably not allowed, but nobody seemed to particularly care. 

 

Charlie figured he should probably be deep in thought, but he wasn’t - not really. Somewhere, in the midst of being regaled by CJ’s tales, he had made up his mind. He oddly liked this strange conglomeration of people, and with Deanna off to college, what did he have to lose?

 

“Hey, CJ?” Charlie tapped her arm, and she whipped around almost alarmingly fast. 

 

“Yes, mi compadre?”

 

“You aren’t in need of a drummer. You’ve got one.” He grinned, and CJ’s eyes widened. She seized Toby’s fork from his plate of nachos, despite his protests, and tapped the side of her glass. 

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, ‘Bartlet for America’,” she exclaimed. “We have a drummer!”


	2. witness to the arc toward the sun

**july/august 2016**

**song of the chapter: ‘have you seen me lately?’, counting crows**

 

The first thing Charlie discovered about Bartlet for America was that their music was as eclectic as their members’ personalities were. Over the next month of coming in and trying out beats to match CJ’s riffs and figuring out if his rhythm worked with Toby’s writing, Charlie did two things. The first thing was download Bartlet for America’s entire discography onto his laptop and subscribe to them on Spotify, and play it at all hours of the day. The music itself probably fit somewhere under the broader umbrella of rock, but each song was different and intricate in its own way. CJ and Josh both had good voices that fitted the music they played, and Charlie found himself liking it immensely. 

 

The second thing he did was dedicate an entire week to getting to know his new bandmates - not just their music, how they wrote, and where he fitted into the picture, but getting to know them as people. After all, he was going to be spending a lot of time with this group - he may as well get to like them. 

 

Charlie’s first target was CJ. She had been very sweet to him that night at the pub, and she seemed interesting. So Charlie volunteered to ride the subway with her out to Brooklyn to buy coffee because apparently they were all coffee snobs sans Josh, who would eat/drink anything if it was unhealthy enough. He learned CJ was from Dayton, Ohio, where her dad was a maths teacher, and she had a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Music from Berkeley, of all places. He learned that she was the opposite of an alcohol snob and would drink anything put in front of her, and that she liked goldfish crackers, but Josh had once told her friend Danny that CJ “liked goldfish”, and that was how she ended up with a pet fish named Gail. 

 

CJ had told him plenty about the others, too - Josh was from Connecticut and had gone to Harvard and Yale, and he was technically Jewish but only went to temple when Toby forced him or when his mother was visiting. Before Toby worked for Bartlet, he worked as a songwriter for hire, but his spikiness and perfectionism had cost him more than a few gigs. Leo had been Jed Bartlet’s manager for as long as anyone could remember, until Jed retired and he became Bartlet for America’s manager. Sam could have had a very promising career as a solo guitarist, but wanted to do ‘something meaningful’, and was probably more of a people-person anyway, CJ had mused. Donna had turned up on Jed Bartlet’s studio doorstep with a violin case, insane talent and the most incredible work ethic CJ had ever seen, and earned a place playing session violin for Jed. CJ told Charlie that they had offered her a proper spot in the band, but Donna had declined and decided to manage instead. He learned a lot about the eclecticism of Bartlet for America’s personalities through their music, but he learned even more through the coffees and breakfast and Subway rides he took with his new colleagues - with, hopefully, his new friends. 

 

But the second thing Charlie discovered about Bartlet for America was that the place where they lived was utterly incredible. 

 

It was a townhouse, lovingly nicknamed ‘The West Wing’ in keeping with the political theme they had going, and it was the semi-permanent home of them all but Leo (who in his “old age”, refused to share living space with anyone other than a romantic prospect). Toby was getting to that point, but he figured that it was sadder for a forty-year-old man to live alone than to live with his bandmates. Donna had a place of her own as well, but she was rarely there and preferred to stay on the West Wing’s couch or on the spare mattress (that she had basically claimed anyway) in CJ’s room. 

 

The place itself was gorgeous - an 175-year-old four-storey townhouse with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The living space - a mishmash of a kitchen, lounge room and dining area - was eclectically decorated with posters on the walls and half finished songs on the baby grand and half eaten Twinkies on the counter (that everyone knew belonged to Josh). The front room had been converted into a band practise space and housed all the instruments and Sam and Toby’s moleskin songwriting diaries, plus an old couch CJ had found at a car boot sale that they all agreed was the most comfortable thing in existence. Donna had hung a tapestry above it and filled it with miscellaneous pillows, and when ‘Bartlet for America’ were practising or recording, that couch was her claimed space. She would sit there and type things and write things and tap her pen to the tune of the song being played against the edge of her precariously balanced laptop, occasionally adding something of value absently that would make the song better. (Toby and Sam both secretly resented her ability to do that, but not in an unkind way. She just made it look so easy.)

 

Josh and Sam bunked together in what could technically be called the attic, and CJ and Donna would crash together in the supposed ‘master’ bedroom on the second floor. Toby had his own room on the third floor (he wouldn’t have it any other way) and before she had left, Mandy had too. Now that she was gone, Donna figured she’d offer Mandy’s old room to Charlie. 

 

The room was compact, probably only enough space for one, really, but with a big airy window looking out over toward the Hudson. It had an in-built wardrobe and enough space for a desk, which Charlie liked, seeing he was still technically at Columbia, if only part-time. Donna directed him to unpack at his discretion, and gave him a key to the house, telling him that there were three basic house rules in the West Wing: 

 

“One,” she said, seating herself on Charlie’s bed, “don’t eat anything labeled with someone else’s name. If there is no label, you are free to eat it. If there is a label, it belongs to someone and is not for consumption. If you don’t want your food eaten, I suggest you bulk buy some adhesive labels. Two -always lock the bathroom door, no matter what. There are people of various genders in this house and we would prefer that particular layer of privacy not be stripped, pun unintended. Three - if you are coming in late, please don’t make a lot of noise. Even though out arrangement does work, it’s still an awful lot of adults with various different schedules piled on top of each other, and if one of us wakes in the night, usually, we all do. That’s basically it.” Donna smiled, pressing the key into his palm. “Welcome to the West Wing.”

 

_~_

 

That fateful June night at the Hawk and Dove had been lucrative not just for Charlie - after CJ had made her announcement vis a vis their new drummer, Sam had resumed his conversation with Toby regarding their new album. He had talked for a little while - in that time, Donna had hoisted Josh out of the bar and into the back of a cab, because he was such a lightweight he was already practically wasted. When Josh and Donna left, Charlie had exchanged numbers with CJ and told everyone he should probably get home to his sister. Everyone said their goodbyes and about twenty minutes later Leo had made some excuse and left too, and CJ went with him in an attempt to beg a ride. That left Sam and Toby seated at the corner of the bar, sharing a plate of nachos and ignoring their beers. 

 

“The fact of the matter, Sam, is that INXS is overrated! Their music is the ‘inspiration’ for so many rock musicians going around nowadays and not only is that just repetitive, it’s not worth… and you’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” 

 

Sam looked a little dazed, and was glancing past Toby’s shoulder. Toby fixed his gaze on him, and he shook himself a little. “Hm?” 

 

Toby raised his hands frustratedly. “What’s with you?” 

 

“There’s a girl behind you. Is she looking at me?”

 

Toby turned around with a tremendous lack of subtlety and looked. The was a girl seated on one of the maroon leather lounges, lit only by the lamplight of the wall behind her. This cast the majority of her features in a mysterious kind of shadow, but the body language underneath her low-cut red dress and the heavy gaze of her dark eyes - well, Toby assumed they were dark - were both fixed upon Sam. 

 

“Yeah, she’s looking at you,” Toby said, turning back to his drink. Sam rolled his eyes and pulled a face. 

 

“Way to be subtle,” He chastised. Toby raised his hands in mock surrender, but he radiated sarcasm and Sam sighed, knowing it would be pointless to pick a fight. Toby would win. 

 

“Anyway,” the man in question continued, “thank God you are of the generation that believes 1980s pop rock to be the root of all evil in this hideous songwriting universe because if I have to hear one more speech from CJ about the virtues of Bono - for God’s sake, Sam, could you maybe give me the common decency of listening when I speak?”

 

Sam’s attention was still on the girl dressed in red. They seemed to be making eye contact; Sam was smiling dumbly. Toby stood up, throwing a twenty on the bar and sighing. 

 

“It’s like I’m not even here.”

 

_~_

 

The months following that Thursday night passed the newly minted ‘Bartlet for America’ conglomeration by with ease, and Charlie found himself falling into a new routine. In July, Deanna had packed up her things and gone to California - she was living with a friend until she could find a place of her own, and thought it would be best for her to get settled before the start of the semester. Charlie missed her - achingly so, she had been his only family for such a long time - but he found himself falling into new routines, with new people, and that took the edge off the sting a little. 

 

About a week after Deanna left, on a Saturday morning, Toby proposed the idea of working on a new album. Charlie had been messing around with the band for a while now and they were sounding good, so he smiled tentatively and agreed. Toby had been writing skeletons of new songs for a while, and over the next couple of weeks he and Sam would routinely scribble little notes in the margins when they discovered how Charlie’s drumming worked with one of their ideas. Donna would be caught humming tunes occasionally as she poured herself coffee and typed emails on her computer, and CJ would mime guitar chords when she was lostin thought on the subway. Charlie discovered he liked the songwriting phase of crafting music better than he thought he would. 

 

Weeks passed, blurring together indeterminably into Columbia lectures and practising with the band and Skyping with Deanna, who was very happy on her friend’s couch in San Francisco, soaking up the sun and visiting the dolphins on the marina. At some point, Deanna teased him that perhaps this new life of his wasn’t as awful and terrible and lonely as he thought it might be. He responded with pure honesty that it really wasn’t - he had found himself, in the midst of his indeterminable busy days, falling into contentment. 

 

Josh, however, was not so easily satisfied. 

 

He certainly seemed better at first - lighter, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders when the stress of his emotionally-incompetent girlfriend had been removed as a factor. But Josh was a worrier, and without Mandy to focus his worry on, it would eventually manifest itself in other ways. He would become unnecessarily anal retentive with his playing and his lines - he would lean over Toby’s shoulder and verbally annotate until CJ had to physically remove him before Toby brought his fist to Josh’s face. About a month into their new endeavour, Donna found Josh metaphorically surrounded by gossip magazines - he had multiple tabs open on his computer, and she figured that was the twenty-first century version of being surrounded - talking about New York born-and-bred drummer Mandy Hampton making a name for herself on the broader music scene. 

 

Bartlet for America’s press was small but sweet - they had a good reputation among music critics, especially those based locally, and a decent-sized fanbase within the States. (Donna was optimistic that they would have a broad enough appeal to go on tour after their second album). 

 

However their only regular press that wasn’t from college newspapers came from Vanity Fair’s Danny Concannon, an old friend of CJ’s from college. He was the band’s self-proclaimed biggest fan, and whilst the band themselves secretly speculated this was simply because he had been half in love with CJ for almost fifteen years (a claim which she denied), nepotism had its uses and if any one of them tried to refute good press it was widely acknowledged that Donna would hunt them down and kill them. So the band had a decent-if-slightly-on-the-small-side press following plus an affable relationship with an acclaimed music journalist, but the band rarely saw themselves become gossip fodder. They weren’t a big enough name for that. 

 

So when Donna saw Mandy’s name in these articles, she put her concern for Josh’s state of mental wellbeing on hold and snatched his laptop from out from under his nose, ignoring his lame yelp of protest, and skimmed through the article for any mentions of Bartlet for America. To her - well, she wasn’t quite sure if she should be dismayed or not yet, so not to her dismay - she saw them mentioned briefly in quite a few of the open articles. Josh was scratching his head in her periphery, and he vaguely tried to come up with some reason for his internet trawling. 

 

“Save it, Josh,” Donna replied absently, eyes still on the computer. “Although there is no way you’re getting out of a very much in-depth conversation about your state of mental wellbeing at a later date.”

 

Josh did not look thrilled at this idea. 

 

“You may have just flagged something with me that will either be very good, or very bad,” she continued. “I couldn’t care less about what Mandy’s doing now - unlike you,” she added pointedly, “but if it’s going to affect our reputation as a band… well. Let’s just say I am very proud of our good press. It’s my baby. And if I have to distance us from Mandy, or get Leo to do something more… drastic, Josh, I swear to God I will.” Donna leaned over the laptop and massaged her temples as she read aloud. 

 

“ _Where is Bartlet for America’s acclaimed drummer headed next? She says she’s very excited about the prospect of a solo career outside New York_ … blah blah blah… _Ms. Hampton says LA’s music scene could be her next target._ Well,” Donna brightened. “At least that’s something. She’ll be halfway across the country, which means that you’ll be less anxious and borderline melancholy whenever we have to play a gig for reasons I can very easily guess.” 

 

Josh attempted to deny his anxiousness and melancholia, to no avail. He was silenced with a pointed look. 

 

“But oh! Speaking of gigs, I got a call an hour ago, we’re playing at a pub downtown next week - I have to call Leo. And Josh?” Donna had pulled her phone from her pocket, but dropped it down on the counter and turned to face the man in question, a soft look in her eyes. 

 

“Hm?” He answered noncommittally. He felt exposed under Donna’s gaze. 

 

“Don’t do this to yourself anymore,” she murmured. “It’s over, and you did the right thing. Don’t kill yourself over it, okay?” Donna smiled sadly, and patted his shoulder on the way out of the room. Josh followed her with his eyes as she went - Donna had become seemingly more sagely of late, and Josh didn’t quite know what to make of it. Nevertheless, he sighed and closed the array of tabs he had open on his laptop and wandered into the front room, flopping down on Donna’s couch and listening to Sam and Charlie practise while Toby sat on a fold-out chair with a notepad on his lap, a pen in one hand and a particularly pungent cigar in the other. 

 

The melancholia could wait, he supposed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, the band au is finally on ao3!!! yay!!!
> 
> i hope you enjoyed so far, feel free to leave comments (always appreciated), thanks for reading, and catch me procrastinating my various lists of things to do over on tumblr at @mossdonnatella. 
> 
> xx


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